Sometimes we will restrict a teacher’s activity on the Outschool platform or remove them entirely. That is an unusual outcome, and we do not make such a decision lightly. Teachers who have been removed for violating our Terms of Service and/or Community Standards are not eligible to reapply to the platform.
We understand that even the best teachers will get bad reviews, miss an occasional class, or have a parent complain about them. In moderation, none of those are likely to raise concerns.
We may restrict or remove teachers when we see repeated or extreme unprofessional conduct, including but not limited to:
Using a personal Zoom account to teach live classes, rather than going through the Outschool platform
Violating our enrollment management policies, including but not limited to:
Missing class
Failing to follow up and reschedule with parents when the teacher misses a class
Starting class more than 5 minutes late or ending class more than 5 minutes early
Canceling a class with less than 24 hours’ notice. To properly cancel a class, parents should be notified more than 24 hours before class is set to start and the class meeting should also be canceled more than 24 hours before the class starts. Canceling within 24 hours of the class start time due to low enrollment is not an acceptable excuse.
Providing consistently poor-quality experiences
Posting materials for legacy flex classes or Groups irregularly or late
Not providing regular feedback or being available for questions in legacy flex or self-paced classes
Not responding to messages from parents who are enrolled with the teacher
Deceiving, or trying to deceive, parents or Outschool
Receiving parent complaints about the teacher’s behavior
Disregarding learner or parent safety or privacy
Requesting enrollment fees from families to be paid outside of the Outschool platform
Attempting to circumvent our process for using third party tools and using a non-compliant resource,
Asking or directing users to enroll in your class(es) on another site
Withdrawing learners or canceling classes based on parent reviews or comments on other classes. Gaming the Outschool review system in any way, such as (but not limited to) artificially inflating reviews by having family members or your own children leave reviews for your own classes strong-arming/guilting parents to change reviews, suggesting parents leave 5-star reviews in return for refunds/discounts, etc., or recreating/relisting classes for the purpose of archiving reviews.
Failing to return a payment to Outschool
Failing to renew your yearly background check
Failing to maintain a good working relationship with the Outschool team
Other unprofessional behavior
Other violations of our community standards, recording policy, or safety policies
When we have concerns about a teacher’s activity on Outschool, we share them with the teacher. In most cases, teachers will be warned prior to removal. However, we reserve the right to take action as we see appropriate up to and including removing teachers without warning, especially in cases of an egregious breach of trust and safety standards or extreme quality concerns.
Such egregious Trust & Safety violations warranting immediate removals may include (but are not limited to):
Not following Outschool’s verification process: failing to report adult learners on the platform and/or remove them from class
Failing to uphold recording and privacy policies: downloading or sharing class videos or jeopardizing the privacy and/or identity of a learner
Participating in fraudulent or misleading financial activity including (but not limited to) gaming of referral systems, abuse of Happiness Guarantee, misuse of coupons, exploiting the Outschool financial assistance program, monetization of any Outschool financial perks (referral, coupon, or financial assistance) by enrolling your own learner in your own class, misleading or deceptive creation of family/learner accounts ownership/usage for financial gain, falsification of learner enrollment data, or failure to report suspicious financial activity or multiple accounts by repeated users, etc.
Using Outschool platform resources or contacts to conduct non-Outschool-related personal business
Combining Outschool classes with other 3rd-party off-platform classes
Not adhering to Outschool Social Media Standards
Using offensive, harassing, profane, or derogatory language
Displaying violent, erratic, or inebriated behaviors in the classroom or other communications
Engaging in inappropriate contact with a learner or parent on or off of the Outschool platform
Providing inappropriate materials or links to learners
Granting access or sharing the password to one’s teaching account to someone not officially given permission to do so by Outschool
Breaking Outschool’s zero-tolerance standards in regards to the use of weapons, alcohol, drug, tobacco, or pornographic materials in class.
Additionally, to help ensure parents see relevant content, we typically unlist classes if they appear inactive. A class will be unlisted if there are no active or future sections and no new sections have been created in the past 12 months. In the case that a teacher has no active sections of any classes in the last 6 months, all classes may be unlisted. If you have been unlisted solely due to inactivity, simply submit your classes for approval again.
Outschool has sole discretion to remove teachers or classes from the platform, with or without prior notice to you.